✓ | 𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀, luke castellan

ꜱɪxᴛʏ-ᴇɪɢʜᴛ

The Dagger and the Blade.

🧶

    In the meantime, things progressed, though not necessarily in a direction Rory could stomach. Daedalus had infiltrated Camp Half-Blood under the guise of a new sword instructor named Quintus. The purpose? To determine if Camp was worth saving. But Rory already knew the answer. Camp Half-Blood wasn’t ready. Not for what was coming. Not for war. The Ares Cabin might puff out their chests and brag about their strength, but strength wasn’t enough. They had no discipline, no true unity. Sure, they had heart, and sometimes that counted for something, but heart wouldn’t win a war. Not this one. They didn’t have the numbers, the strategy, or the ruthlessness it would take to survive. It was almost pathetic, really, the way they clung to the idea of their own invincibility.

    Daedalus would see it. He was too clever not to. Rory had no doubt he’d weigh the camp’s potential against the inevitability of Kronos’s rise and come to the only logical conclusion: Camp Half-Blood wasn’t worth saving.

    Meanwhile, Silena had checked in again. Another quest was underway, one that might prove to be Camp Half-Blood’s latest desperate bid for relevance. Rory had almost laughed when Selina told them the roster. Of course Percy Jackson was involved—when wasn’t he? The kid had a knack for stumbling into every significant event of their age. Annabeth was leading the quest officially, which was no surprise either. The girl was sharp, though her blind devotion to Camp and her hubris would be her downfall. Then there was Grover, finally reuniting the original trio, and Percy’s monster brother, the Cyclops. That one had been an interesting twist. Still, Rory couldn’t help but think the quest sounded more like a child’s adventure story than a serious mission. And if these were the best heroes the camp could muster for such a stupid and pointless quest, it only confirmed her belief: they were doomed.

    Now, Rory stood once again aboard the Princess Andromeda. The stateroom where she found herself was opulent, as everything on the ship was—designed to exude wealth, power, and authority. Moonlight spilled through the tall windows, painting the room in cold silver. The velvet drapes swayed gently in the night breeze, their movement accompanied by the faint sound of waves lapping against the ship’s hull. The air smelled of salt and something faintly metallic, like the promise of bloodshed hanging on the horizon.

    Her attention was drawn, almost magnetically, to the centerpiece of the room: the golden sarcophagus that housed Kronos, his fragmented essence slowly piecing itself back together. The sarcophagus was grotesque, its craftsmanship undeniably beautiful yet deeply unnerving. The gold glinted coldly in the moonlight.

    And before it knelt Luke.

    In the moonlight, his dark hair shimmered with silver, rendering him ethereal. He wore an Ancient Greek chiton that draped elegantly over his frame, paired with a white himation. The garment pooled around him, its folds cascading like water, timeless and pristine. The pure white of his clothing, untouched by even the faintest blemish, gave him the appearance of a myth come to life—a figure plucked from stories long past, standing on the threshold of legend and memory.

    Rory watched him with a tangled knot of emotions tightening in her chest. In the soft glow of the stateroom, he looked more like a god or a ghost than a boy. Perhaps he was both, and perhaps neither. He was real enough to break her heart. The Luke she had known was there, kneeling before the sarcophagus, but he wasn’t the same. She hated how ethereal he looked now, how unreachable. How much he already seemed to belong to Kronos.

    Rory wasn’t in the ceremonial Greek clothing they’d dressed Luke in—only Kronos’s host was afforded that particular honor. Still, she wasn’t exempt from the Titan’s whims. She, too, was dressed in white, though her outfit was more modern. It felt like a calculated move, a cruel symbolism Kronos had chosen with precision. White—the color of innocence, of purity—twisted into something else entirely.